Market News

Alaska’s Halibut and Black Cod Harvest Season Opens Saturday

Written by

Alaska’s wild halibut and black cod (sablefish) harvest season opens Saturday, March 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM local time. Statewide Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits for Alaska halibut and black cod are set at 16.8 million pounds and 33.6 million pounds respectively. Alaska is home to over 95% of the Pacific halibut and over 70% of the black cod harvested in the United States. Like all species of Alaska seafood, Alaska halibut and black cod are wild and sustainable, as mandated by the Alaska Constitution. Alaska’s science-based fishery management practices are considered a world model.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) is responsible for setting the annual halibut harvest limit based on stock assessments and halibut biology, and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) makes allocative decisions based on that quota. The Alaska black cod fisheries are both federally and state managed, with the NPFMC reviewing the annual stock assessment and harvest limits for fisheries in federal waters and the State of Alaska managing the fisheries in state waters.

The largest of all flatfish, Alaska halibut is prized for its mild, sweet flavor, firm texture, and spectacular results whether grilled, roasted, sautéed, or poached. Alaska black cod offers a beautiful snow-white fillet, perfect flake, and succulent velvety texture. Along with being excellent roasted, sautéed, and poached, Alaska black cod is ideal for smoking.

www.alaskaseafood.org

Instability in Ukraine affects fresh produce

Written by

The political instability in the Ukraine is having an effect on the fresh produce imports and exports to the country.The cost of fresh produce has increased by 10% in February, citrus alone rising by 20%.

The Ukrainian border with Poland is closed due to the situation and no fruit or veg imports or exports are taking place. One Polish apple exporter said that if the situation continued it would greatly affect the market, Poland exports 200,000 tonnes of apples to Ukraine every year.

Similarly imports of Greek kiwis have ground to a halt this week. A Ukrainian importer said that it was becoming more and more difficult to purchase fresh produce from abroad. “The value of our currency has dropping steadily making everything very expensive, to add to this the banks are now taking 1½ to supply foreign currency which makes payment very slow.”

Most fruit and vegetables are still available in the Ukraine, but with the change in the administration getting customs clearance is proving to be a long progress too.

www.freshplaza.com

11% increase in revenue for Metro in 2013

Written by

There was an 11.3% year-on-year increase in the Russian revenues of Metro Cash & Carry, the grocery retail division of the German Metro Group, to RUB 183.2bn (€3.68bn), in 2013. At the same time, the company’s like-for-like sales grew by 7.7%. The company disclosed its Russian financial results for the first time because it is considering an IPO for the Russian Metro Cash & Carry business. The Metro Group is planning to float 25% on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

In addition, the company’s EBITDA rentability figure has reached 12.4%, which is a record among large grocery retailers in the country.

According to Metro’s quarterly report, at the end of 2013 it was operating 73 Metro Cash & Carry hypermarkets in Russia.

www.ceeretail.com

Anjou pear sales are up

Written by

Anjou pear volumes were 24% higher in the last quarter of 2013 than in the same quarter the year before.

Sales of the variety also were 26% higher, according to Nielsen Perishables Group data analyzed by Wenatchee, Washington-based grower-shipper Stemilt Growers.

Volumes and sales of red anjous, bartletts and boscs also were up in the quarter, according to a Stemilt news release.

More use of ripening programs, value bag offerings and multiple varieties on ad at once are some of the reasons Stemilt has enjoyed a season of brisk pear movement, marketing director Roger Pepperl said in the release.

“Here at Stemilt, our pear program has really benefitted over the past several years from capital investments, new products, and a focus on getting multiple pears on ad every month during the fall and winter season,” Pepperl said in the release. “The increased shelf space for pears during a multi-pear ad often results in 15-20% increases in volume when compared to one item pear ads.”

www.thepacker.com

Russia reduces apple imports

Written by

Russia’s imports of apples are still significantly lower compared with the previous season, according to Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation.

In particular, Russian importers purchased just 109,000 tons of apples in January 2014, a decrease of 28% year-on-year. Russia’s cumulative imports over the first 7 months of the current season fell by 15% compared with the same period of the previous season and totaled 575,000 tons.

Such a sharp decrease in apple imports is connected with lower shipments from Poland, which has reduced exports to Russia by 30% since the beginning of the season 2013/14, and rather moderate demand for apples in the Russian Federation.

www.fruit-inform.com

Zespri releases new payout forecast

Written by

Zespri chief executive Lain Jager says everything is on track for growers to be getting healthy returns and prices for green kiwifruit are up. Growers of green kiwifruit are earning over $40,000 per hectare, the best return in 10 years.

The price for gold kiwifruit is also very strong at $12.60 per tray, but it is on reduced volumes because of the vine-killing disease PSA. Mr Jager has added that the 2014 crop, which will shortly start being harvested, is looking good and gold kiwifruit numbers are beginning to recover. Last year 2 million trays of the new variety of gold kiwifruit were harvested and this year it will be about 9.5 million trays.

www.freshplaza.com

Russian AJC manufacturers face problems with sales

Written by

The Russian AJC (apple juice concentrate) market situation is rather difficult for domestic manufacturers. Abundant supply of domestic AJC and lack of sales channels are the main problems faced by them. In addition, AJC imports (mainly from China, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Iran) are rather high.

At the same time, processors rarely revise their prices. The price decrease is registered in isolated cases and does not improve the situation.

For the present, prices vary between at 1.10-1.20 euro/kg.

www.fruit-inform.com

Russia may totally ban GMO products

Written by

Russian parliamentarians will submit to the State Duma a bill, which severely restricts imports of genetically modified agricultural products, and completely banning their domestic production, RT reports.

This bill is an amendment to the existing law “On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products”, which sets norms for the maximum content of transgenic and genetically modified components in food. The powers to establish that norm, go to the government and products with excessive content of GMO components should be banned for turnover and imports.

Evgeny Fyodorov, the author of the bill and a member of the United Russia party, said that it does not suppose a total ban on imports of genetically modified products, but imposes government’s control on it. He adds that the draft law will be introduced to the State Duma for viewing in two weeks.

The head of Russia’s Organic Farming Union, Yakov Lyubovedsky, believes that the passing of the bill would show if the Duma can defend the country’s independence and the interests of population. He also added that GMO was an experiment on humanity itself and that the industry could do very well without genetically-enhanced plants and animals.

He also noted that the limitations would create a threat of uncontrolled and dangerous spread of illegal genetically modified crops.

The bill will be submitted to the State Duma in two weeks’ time and its authors claim that its chances of passing are very high.

www.freshplaza.com

Pears remain impulse buy for American consumers

Written by

Kevin Moffitt with Pear Bureau Northwest recently spent some time talking about the challenges to marketing the northwest pear crop.

“The first issue is the fact that pears are just not on people’s list. Not everybody is buying pears. They’re an impulse item with just a small but solid core group that is buying most of the fruit sold,” said Moffitt.

In a list of top fruit items sold in the U.S. apples come in at the number one spot but pears don’t make the top 10 at number 11.

Less than 50% of consumers buy pears in any given year. In addition to that 35% of pear purchasers are buying 90% of the pears sold.

“Those that do buy pears they tend to buy only 7 times per year,” Moffitt added. “So while we’ll continue to nurture those heavy pear purchasers one key objective is to move those medium pear purchasers up slightly.”

www.freshplaza.com

31% increase in Lenta’s sales in 2013

Written by

Lenta, one of the major Russian grocery retailers, increased its total sales by 31.3% year on year to RUB 144.3bn (€3.03bn) in 2013, according to the company’s IFRS financial report. At the same time, the LFL sales grew by 10%.

What is more, there was a 35% increase in the retail space of the Russian hypermarket retailer Lenta in 2013, and the company has become the most rapidly growing business in this arena among the largest grocery retailers in Russia.

At the end of last year Lenta’s retail space came to 508,000 m² and the company had 87 stores in total. The retailer has opened 31 stores, including 10 supermarkets in Moscow and the Moscow Province. It operates 77 hypermarkets in 45 cities in Russia.

Lenta’s main shareholders are the American investment fund TPG (49.8%), the EBRD (21.5%) and VTB Capital (11.7%). In early February the retailer announced that it intended to enter the London Stock Exchange and the Moscow Exchange by means of IPOs.

www.ceeretail.com